


The Prize

by Tarlan



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, M/M, Merry Month of Masturbation Challenge, Trope Bingo Round 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 16:06:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1611176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezra discovers that some prizes are worth more than money.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Prize

**Author's Note:**

> Written for:  
>  **Trope Bingo** Round 3: bets/wagers  
>  **MMoM 2014** Day 13

Ezra could still recall the events as if it they had happened only yesterday. He remembered finding the ten thousand dollars in the hotel room, and how he had failed himself and his friends when he gave into the temptation to take the money and run. He recalled walking through the crowd at the rally, barely hearing anything through the dulled throb in his head as his mind whirled with thoughts of betrayal - his betrayal of a group of men who had become a family to him.... and betrayal of one man in particular.

Chris Larabee.

Neither of them were perfect, which each carrying their own demons on their backs, and yet he had found Chris to be an honorable man. A good man who belied his fierce reputation as a dark and soulless gunfighter with acts of bravery and chivalry.

It still seemed so strange to Ezra now, walking through that crowd as if he was caught in the throes of a nightmare, with only the clarity of that glass eye, and the knowledge of the imminent death of someone he cared for most deeply pulling him back from that deep abyss. For although Chris's feelings for Mrs. Travis went no deeper than friendship, Ezra knew in his heart that Chris would place himself between her and danger, and he would die.

Ezra could not allow that to happen, and in an act so selfless that his mother would disown him, he placed himself as a shield between a killer and Chris instead.

Perhaps it was fated, with God moving in mysterious ways just as Josiah had preached, but the packed dollars inside his coat absorbed the impact of the gun shot, rendering him stunned and bruised rather than taking a bullet to the heart. As a gambling man he would not have wagered on surviving that encounter under normal circumstances, seeing the odds as stacked too high against him, but as he lay back on the bed in Chris's cabin, far from the town, with Chris avidly watching as Ezra slowly thrust into his own palm, Ezra knew he had won more than a share of the ten thousand dollars.

When Chris finally decided he had stood by watching for long enough and climbed onto the bed beside him, Ezra knew he had won the heart of Chris Larabee as well, and that was a prize greater than any monetary reward.

END  
.


End file.
